


Destination Unknown

by freshpageonthedesk



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Clexa, F/F, France (Country), Hotel employee Lexa, Hotel guest Clarke, Love at First Sight, Nervous Lexa (The 100), Pilgrimage, french lexa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25725787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freshpageonthedesk/pseuds/freshpageonthedesk
Summary: Clarke is on a pilgrimage trip to Santiago de Compostella. Lexa is working in a hotel along the way.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin & Lexa, Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Comments: 15
Kudos: 131





	Destination Unknown

_“This plan is crazy,” she said. “I appreciate that you want to do this for me, but I really don’t think this is going to work. I mean, have you seen me? I can’t do this.”_

_"You can do everything you set your mind to,” they told her. “Besides, it’s not the destination that matters. It’s the path. It has led many people to new realizations or unforeseen coincidences. You never know what could happen to you along the way.”_

_She thought about it. These days, it was already a lot if she didn’t just give it a straightforward no._

_What if it leads me nowhere?”_

_"Then at least you’ve tried.”_

* * *

_Clarke's travelling diary - Day one hundred and one_

_I don’t think I can do this anymore._

_It’s been over three months since we've started this trip, and not much has changed._

_Maybe the daily challenges we face on our long walks steal my attention away from the dark thoughts for a while, but never for long. And when they return, they are the same as before._

_I should have done things like this with my parents when I still had the chance. That’s what I thought today when we were walking through a rainstorm, tired and soaked to the bone, water making its way to my socks and reopening the blisters I thought would have healed by now. In many ways this was the most miserable moment of the entire journey, yet it filled me with the kind of melancholy I've only felt right after their death._

_Maybe the psychologists are right and it is all part of the healing process. I don’t know. Actually I’m not sure if I want to heal at all. If I want to wake up one day and not feel this pain anymore. Wouldn’t that be betrayal?_

_Anyway, the others didn’t try to help me anymore; neither with my weak moment, nor with the blisters. It seems as if they’ve finally accepted that I don’t want their help, that I don’t need the pitying looks on their faces whenever I’m not smiling along with them. That’s a good thing. This is also their trip and I don’t want to ruin this for them._

_Or maybe I just don’t want people to tell me what to do anymore._

_Maybe all I really want is for someone to look at me and see the real me, and not the burden of pain that I carry with me everywhere I go._

_Someone who makes me forget instead of learn to live with it._

_If it doesn’t stop raining soon, I’m going home._

_Maybe that’s where I should have been all along._

* * *

Change arrived at the very moment that Lexa needed it the most.

She was twenty-three, and had lived an equal amount of years in the picturesque city of Dax, France. Her biological uncle – alias adoptive father – owned a small hotel in the outskirts of the city, not far from the pilgrimage route to Santiago De Compostella. Beforehand, she wouldn't have chosen for a life dedicated to folding napkins and mopping floors, but once you're into the business it's fairly hard to break with it. Where else was she supposed to go, with hardly enough money on the bank to buy food for a week?

Most of her budget crept into the books that filled up two entire walls of her tiny bedroom in the private section of the hotel. Ever since she graduated from high school, she'd been trying to study by herself. The scant revenues they gained from a customer base consisting mainly of pilgrims were barely enough to cover up the costs of running the hotel, let alone they would be sufficient to fund a higher education. So instead, Lexa committed to the prospect of a lifelong duty in the hotel, to the detriment of her own blossoming life as a woman in her early twenties.

Still, she hoped she could break free one day. The odds had never been much in her favor and it didn’t look like they ever would be, but what was life without a little hope.

She had seen it before with her former girlfriend and baker's daughter Costia, who had left everything and everyone – including Lexa – behind in exchange for a life in Paris. The last time Lexa heard from her, she was about to get married to a politician (male, and fourteen years older). So much for Costia’s solemn pledges that she wouldn't ever opt for a boring and predictable life.

Lexa wasn't exactly jealous of her. But when you've been mopping the same floors every day for five years, your mind wanders sometimes. The hole that Costia had left behind in her heart was now filled with dreams of the movie stars that she saw on magazine covers, smiling brightly at her, offering her an escape route from _la misère quotidienne_ – the everyday misery. Chances were small that Jodie Comer or Emma Watson would ever set foot in a hotel like hers, but then again, what was life without a little hope.

Her hope came in the form of a twenty-year-old British college girl, soaked and exhausted, and not at all the type for a pilgrimage of about five hundred miles. Lexa was occupying the reception for a change, although she was more lost in a book about the French Revolution and therefore didn't look up until someone coughed to gain her attention.

The college girl wasn't alone, and she also wasn't the one who had coughed, but Lexa's eyes were immediately drawn to her. Standing there in a navy blue raincoat, strands of soggy hair (presumably blonde in a dry state) glued to her face, she didn't exactly resemble Emma Watson, but there was something about her that made Lexa feel thankful for her job for the very first time in her life. 

At first the girl wasn't aware of Lexa's staring. She was simply looking around the hall, observing the amateurish paintings on the walls that had been there for decades. Multiple times, Costia had suggested to get those "guest repellents" out of there as soon as possible, an advice Lexa now deeply wished she would have followed.

Whatever the girl's thoughts on the paintings were, she didn't say anything when she turned her head to face the – remarkably silent – receptionist. Lexa was convinced that she was going to pass out when a pair of deep blue eyes caught her gaze, widening slightly at the unexpected eye contact. A sudden gasp of cool air made her realize that her mouth had fallen open. Feeling like a complete fool, she tightly pressed her lips together and averted her gaze to the boy directly in front of her, who was looking at her expectantly.

"Can I help you?" she choked out, her capability to speak seemingly just as lost as her thoughts.

"We would like to book a room for tonight," the boy said in fluent French, though with a clear English accent. "If you still have one."

Behind him, his travel companionship put their dripping backpacks down on the clean floor. With any other guests, Lexa would have clenched her jaw in irritation, but this mesmerizing blonde girl made her forget about the mopping entirely. Instead, she let her gaze wander over the other pilgrims – two more boys, who didn't seem too interested in the hotel booking thing and were chasing each other with something that looked an alarming lot like an earthworm, and a girl with slick brown hair that was complaining about her sore feet. And lastly, on her own in a corner and sunk in thoughts, that blonde girl with the blue eyes – _oh those blue eyes_. 

In order not to start gaping at her again, Lexa pretended to check the (tragically empty) guest list on her desk. "I'm pretty sure we still have place, we're never full," she mumbled, realizing too late how bad that remark made the hotel look. "I mean, not this time of the year," she added hastily, which was an even stupider thing to say since it was the middle of the summer season.

"Well, we're pretty lucky, then," the boy in front of her answered with a smirk. He leaned his arms on the counter, his pilgrimage card at the ready in his hand. "If you have so much choice anyway, make it two rooms. For that one time that we’re staying in a hotel instead of a hostel, things can be a little bit fancier. And I'm fed up with sleeping in the same room as Octavia all the time – she snores an awful lot."

The name “Octavia” made Lexa glance at the unknown blonde girl again, hoping it would trigger some sort of reaction out of her. But all she did was subtly tilting her head to the side, probably wondering why this receptionist kept staring at her. _And I wonder why this girl keeps staring back_ , Lexa thought as she safely hid from view behind her computer. The old machine had reached retirement age a fair couple of years ago, and it now took him endless to load the booking form. 

The girl Lexa presumed was called Octavia slapped the boy on his arm. "Hey, Finn, what did you say about me? I heard my name there," she said in British, confirming Lexa's assumption about their origin. Lexa's own English was far from perfect, but she knew enough to understand conversations and to help herself out when serving guests. 

"I said you and Clarke should get your own room, so you won't have to deal with Jasper and Monty's pillow fights for a change," Finn answered. It was a downright lie, but all Lexa could hear was the other girl’s name he'd mentioned – Clarke. _Clarke Clarke Clarke_. It was perhaps the most not-French-sounding name one could have, and it would definitely cause her trouble trying to pronounce it, but even then it sounded like music to her ears. _Clarke_. Clarke the British girl that would sleep in her hotel.

"I'll need you to fill out this form," Lexa said while she put the freshly-printed sheet of paper on the counter for Finn to sign. "Two rooms for tonight, with breakfast. If you want dinner too, just tick this box right here." 

"That's an easy choice," Finn grinned, starting with the box. "I'm starving." 

" _Merci,_ " Lexa mumbled when he gave her the form back and she shoved it into a dossier on the desk. Her hands where still trembling from her encounter with Clarke, which made it hard to hand the keys to the guests. It was Jasper who immediately snatched them off the desk, already on his way to the staircase with Monty behind him before Lexa even got the chance to explain where their rooms were.

Finn gave her an apologetic look. “In case you have highchairs for toddlers, those might come in handy,” he mocked, a joke that might have gotten Lexa to laugh if she hadn’t been so petrified by this recent turn of events.

The Octavia girl was whining about her heavy bag, so Finn lifted it onto his free shoulder and took off behind the two other boys, closely followed by the satisfied brunette who obviously had a crush on him.

Lexa waited for them to turn the corner before she dared to glance at Clarke again. Unlike the others, she didn’t seem to be in such a hurry to explore her bedroom. For a moment Lexa wondered if she was aware that her friends had left at all, as the girl was still staring blankly at some point on the desk – _Lexa’s hands_ , she realized with mild panic. _This girl was staring at her hands._ When she looked up again – not to make a remark about it, this girl could literally stare at anything for as long as she wanted – Clarke blinked her eyes a few times and her cheeks turned rosy. She opened her mouth to say something, but then changed her mind and picked up her backpack.

Now, there was no Finn to help her carry the heavy thing upstairs. _This was Lexa’s chance. She could offer her help, maybe talk to her a bit, make that pretty mouth laugh._

_Except that she was always so damn clumsy and awkward, and she would certainly mess things up._

Lexa put a step forward and took a sharp inhale, but Clarke didn’t see her and walked to the stairs in a firm pace, shattering her hopes.

_And shy. She was also goddamn shy._

* * *

Clarke opened her backpack to find all of her band-aids completely ruined. A round of complaining yielded her only mild compassion from Octavia, who told her she was an idiot for keeping them in the top pocket on a rainy day and suggested to go ask the boys for a dry one. There was no way Clarke was going to use a band-aid that had been squeezed between a pile of dirty boy’s socks, however, so she decided to descend to the reception instead.

It wasn’t only her painful feet that led her back, though. Her heart sank a little in her chest when she found the pretty, somewhat mysterious receptionist from before replaced by an older, bald, visibly grumpy man. 

He looked up from his newspaper with unfriendly, piercing eyes. Then he uttered something in French that Clarke had come to learn meant _can I do something for you?_

“Uh, I was wondering if I could maybe buy some band-aids,” she answered in English, clenching her fists in unease as this suddenly felt like a very bad plan. Usually Finn did the communication thing, as Clarke’s French vocabulary didn’t reach much further than a few words to say "hi" and "thank you". 

The man furrowed his brow. “Me no speak English,” he said in a weird accent. “Solo _f_ _rançais_ and _espagnol_.” 

“Okay,” Clarke murmured while she hesitantly stepped away from the reception. She really wished she would have thought this through. “ _Pas de problème_ ,” no problem. “I’ll just… go.” She pointed to the staircase, hoping that would make clear what she meant. The man, however, answered with a hand gesture that Clarke conceived of as “stay where you are”. He got off his chair and shuffled to a door that she hadn’t noticed before, right next to the reception. Nailed to it was a small black sign with a clear-cut message, even for a non-French speaker: _privat_ , private. 

“Lexa!” he yelled, followed by a stream of other syllables that came out in such a quick pace that Clarke couldn’t even distinguish between different words in the sentence. She just stood there rooted to the spot, smiling awkwardly when the man turned back to her and repeated the same hand gesture he made before. 

Seconds later, a girl appeared in the doorway. Her hair was now in a messy braid and she was wearing a stained apron that hadn’t been there before, but it was unmistakably the receptionist who had been staring at Clarke earlier. Now again, her slightly bitter expression changed when she saw whom she’d been called for and she nervously wiped her wet hands on the apron, without much result. 

“Hello,” the girl named Lexa said in English. “How can I help you?” Like most French people, she didn’t pronounce the letter h, but out of her mouth it was a very cute thing to hear. 

“I’m looking for band-aids,” Clarke proclaimed. “You see, my bag got soaked in the storm and I was stupid enough to let my band-aids die. Unfortunately, they turned out not be as waterproof as the box promised. So I was wondering if I could maybe buy some here, but if that’s easier I can also go to the store tomorrow morning.” 

Lexa’s eyes widened a little and Clarke silently cursed herself for blurting out an entire monologue while the receptionist might not speak _that_ much English. “So, band-aids,” she summarized, now feeling even more stupid. 

“Band-aids,” Lexa repeated, tasting the word as if she was trying to guess its meaning – or to imitate Clarke’s pronunciation. It did seem to ring a bell, though. “Wait a moment, I’ll see what we 'ave.” 

“Thank you,” Clarke answered with a polite smile. She had to hold herself back from biting her lip when she watched Lexa disappear into the private section again. It was just the very build of this girl that made it impossible to look away; relatively tall, skinny but with all the right curves, the long brown hair, the face, the mouth, the _eyes_ … 

Lexa returned with a white-and-red box and a self-satisfied smile that made her entire face light up. Instead of joining the newspaper-reading hotel owner behind the reception, she walked around the desk towards Clarke and showed her the box. Its title read " _pansements"_ , which was probably the French word for band-aids, but Lexa indicated a smaller sentence in the bottom left corner. “ _Resistant à l’eau_ ,” she read slowly, “that means they are waterproof.” 

“Oh, great. Well, let’s hope French quality is better than English,” Clarke giggled somewhat nervously. _But it seems like you’re the proof of that_ , she thought when she glanced at Lexa’s smile. 

She was still staring at the brunette’s face when Lexa tried to hand her the box, which caused their fingers to brush. The soft touch made Clarke’s heart leap up and a shiver ran down her spine, having nothing to do with the cold.

“Thanks,” Clarke uttered breathlessly. The receptionist rewarded her with another smile before she turned around and started to walk back to the private door, where, Clarke assumed, she was doing the dishes.

She didn’t want her to go yet, though. She was way too fond of those smiles, that seemed to be reserved exclusively for her, and that cute accent when she spoke English. This girl was more worth her attention than the chaotic mishmash of her friends upstairs who probably weren’t even missing her.

“Is there a garden?”

Clarke surprised herself just as much with the question as it surprised Lexa. The Frenchwoman skidded back to her, hands neatly folded in front of her belly. “Well, there’s a courtyard behind the dining room, but it’s not much,” she said. “I wouldn’t exactly recommend it for its coziness. But you can smoke on your room’s balcony if you like.”

The blonde scratched her neck, realizing this question was probably mostly asked by smokers. “I don’t smoke,” she explained. “I just need some fresh air.”

“Oh, well of course, sorry.” Lexa nervously bit her lip and averted her gaze to the reception. Her uncle was observing them over the brim of his reading glasses, one eyebrow furrowed in suspicion. This was also a primer – Lexa being glad that he didn’t speak the slightest bit of English, so that he couldn’t eavesdrop on them. Whatever he was thinking, she wasn’t going to let this chance slip away from her again. “So, the courtyard,” she said as casually as possible. “I can walk there with you if you like.”

Clarke’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that’d be nice. I mean, if you have time for that.” Her gaze lowered to the smudged apron that the hotel employee used for cleaning.

Lexa took it off and carelessly tossed it into the umbrella stand. “Nothing that can’t wait.”

Clarke couldn’t help but smile when she followed her outside. The courtyard was indeed tiny, almost claustrophobic, and its two rusty garden chairs were overgrown with ivy. What once had been a nice lawn, was now nothing more than a bunch of shamrock and some burned grass.

“As I said, we’re not going to win prizes with this. Except maybe the award for gloomiest courtyard in France.”

Clarke chuckled. Unlike earlier, she didn’t look around much, but kept her eyes fixated on Lexa – _well, it was better for the hotel’s reputation to focus on its most beautiful aspects, right?_ “Your English is good,” she complimented.

“Ah, well, it’s not as it should be, but I’m working on it. Knowledge of languages comes in useful when you work in tourism sector and your uncle is a complete illiterate.”

“Your uncle,” Clarke repeated, making it sound like a question since she wanted to keep Lexa talking in that adorable French accent. Her finger subconsciously traced the flaky armrest of the chair next to her, until she noticed that it made Lexa purse her lips in embarrassment. The brunette sighed. 

“Yep, that medieval man you just saw is my uncle. He’s the reason we have _this_ instead of a rose garden with swimming pool and a cocktail bar.”

Clarke grinned. “Sad, because a good cocktail is exactly what I need to be able to walk another fifteen miles tomorrow.”

“It’s not because there isn’t a bar that I can’t serve you a cocktail.” Lexa naughtily wriggled her eyebrows. “I can make you something that will make you _forget_ that you’re walking fifteen miles.”

Clarke chuckled again, and Lexa had to bite her lips not to start grinning like an idiot. _This girl._ Somehow she felt as if her entire life had led up to this moment, this meaningless conversation with a British girl that kept laughing as if Lexa was actually _funny_ (she wasn’t. Her colleagues even referred to her as “miss Grumpy”.).

“Anyway, I don’t want to hold you up,” Clarke said. “Thank you for showing me around. And for the _pansements._ ” She held up the box of band-aids, smirking proudly at her capability to say something in French. She pronounced it totally wrong, but Lexa decided not to ruin her happiness and just smiled in response.

“Anytime. If there’s something else I can 'elp you with… For instance, we have a rather impressive wine cellar, I don’t know if you’re interested in that but if you want to I could…” Lexa trailed off, realizing she might come over a little too eager. Certainly not all guests received this kind of service – on the contrary, the wine cellar was out of bounds for everyone who wasn’t her uncle (or Lexa herself, but she was only granted access because she didn’t drink alcohol).

Clarke smiled and shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m not really into wine. Jasper and Monty would be interested, though, but you’ve seen them – I don’t want to do that to you.”

“No, rather not,” Lexa mumbled with a smirk. “Well, I’ll go back to work then.” It was hard to hide her disappointment, though. She wished she could just talk to Clarke all day, instead of executing whatever orders her uncle barked to her. “See you later… Clarke was it, right?”

_As if that name wasn’t graved into her mind since the very first time she’d heard it._

“Yes,” Clarke said, surprised that she’d remembered her name despite only hearing it once. “And if I didn’t hear it wrong, then you must be Lexa?”

“Yes.” Lexa felt a blush appear on her cheeks when she heard Clarke say her name.

Both girls smiled, neither of them making the slightest attempt to leave. Lexa didn’t know what Clarke was waiting for and curiously stared into her eyes, the blue around her wide pupils making her go dizzy. She had immediately noticed how beautiful this girl was, but from up close it hit her all over again. Feeling just as paralyzed as when Clarke first walked in, her eyes automatically lowered to the blonde’s lips. The courtyard was so _small_ and they were standing so _close_ and Clarke just kept on _smiling_ and she was just so _cute_ , so, _so cute._

Lexa didn’t realize she was leaning forward until she felt Clarke’s lips on hers. The sudden touch made her pull away abruptly, almost hitting her head into a window sill. Clarke looked surprised, shocked maybe, and she opened her mouth to say something but no sound came out.

“S-sorry,” Lexa stammered. “I-I…”

There was no way to apologize for this. Her nerves taking over, Lexa turned around and rushed back into the hotel, ignoring her uncle’s questioning gaze and only pausing to snatch her apron out of the umbrella stand before she disappeared into the kitchen.

* * *

“You _kissed_ her?”

Whilst Anya would never be the best in relationship advice, she was the only person Lexa trusted with this kind of information. The chef’s cooking skills were in fact way too good for a hotel like this, but that was a lost discussion – “ _I’m really not going to quit my job to work as a sous-chef in some fancy restaurant, Lex. I need to be in control or there will be victims._ ”

“I told you it was stupid.” Lexa sighed and buried her face in her hands. She was supposed to peel tomatoes for dinner, but couldn’t concentrate on the task while her mistake kept flashing through her mind.

“What did she say?”

“Nothing. I just ran away.”

Anya almost dropped the knife she was holding. “You kissed her and you ran away?”

“God, don’t make it sound worse than it is.” Lexa picked up a tomato and nearly cut in her finger because her hands were shaking that badly.

“It _is_ bad, Lex.” Anya took the tomatoes away from her and started peeling them herself. “You should find her and tell her why you did it.”

“Are you crazy? Then she’s definitely going to kill me.”

“Oh come on.” The chef dropped the peeled tomato in the sink with a plop, making water splash on the wall. “From what you told me, it appears to me that this girl likes you too.”

“Nobody ever likes me,” Lexa whined dramatically. She folded her arms on the worktop and rested her chin on them, but only for a brief second as she was disturbed by Anya violently grabbing the back of her shirt and pulling her to her feet.

“Alright, miss Grumpy, let’s do something about your problem.” She dragged Lexa towards the dining room with her. The brunette resisted and after a little fight, she succeeded to shove Anya into a wall.

“What are you doing?” she snarled. Usually Lexa hardly ever got out of the kitchen during dinner, as she hated to carry trays with empty glasses around – her hands weren’t steady enough for that.

Her entire body froze when she heard the unmistakable sound of Clarke’s laughter on the other side of the door. Inadvertently, she turned her head to catch more of it, completely forgetting about the colleague that she was pinning to the wall. One of the waiters passed the duo with a bottle of wine in his hands and when the doors slid open, Lexa glanced past him and caught a glimpse of blonde hair at a table by the window. Her stomach flipped.

Anya made use of the diversion to switch places with her. “Dude, you’re so into her,” she mocked when she saw Lexa’s startled face. “Now go take their order.” The chef let her go with a slight push towards the door.

“What?”

Anya rolled her eyes. “Or you stay here and you spend the rest of your life wondering what could have happened if you weren’t such a coward.” She dropped the last word in the most casual way, knowing damn well how much it upset Lexa.

“Alright,” Lexa grumbled. “I’ll go in. But if it kills me, you’re the one to blame.”

Her friend saluted her with a teasing grin on her face. “Hurry up, Lex, the guests are waiting.” With those words, she left Lexa standing in front of the door as she hurried back to her tomatoes.

_Alright. Taking an order. How hard could this be._

Very hard, it turned out. She hadn’t passed the doors yet or she already wished she would have just stayed safely in the kitchen. Clarke was there, in plain sight, with clean clothes and dry hair, which was now really _blonde_ and _curly_ and if possible even more beautiful. _Oh god, this girl_.

Lexa strode over to their table, her heart pounding loudly in her ears. The boy named Jasper was the first to notice her and he grinned widely. “Hey, look, hot reception girl is here,” he said in English, clearly under the impression that Lexa wouldn’t understand him.

Clarke looked up, the smile on her face making place for an expression that Lexa couldn’t quite put her finger on, as she was avoiding to look at her directly. Was it discomfort? Anger? Confusion? In each case, this entire take-up-their-order thing now seemed a very, _very_ bad idea.

“Can I bring you something to drink?” Lexa asked, her voice rather hoarse. However, the alarmed look on Jasper’s face when he realized she could speak English was worth a million. He jabbed Monty in the ribs with his arm and the two of them started to whisper under their breaths. Meanwhile Octavia looked rather annoyed by this interruption – she had her hand on Finn’s thigh and looked well on the way to make a move on him later. Lexa wondered why Clarke wanted to hang out with these kind of people; it seemed as if she wasn’t really in her place here.

“Well, thanks, but that man already took our order,” Finn noted, nodding at some point behind Lexa’s shoulder. When she followed his gaze, she saw the waiter from before standing inches behind her with a tray full of glasses in his hands. She quickly stepped aside to let him pass.

“Oh. Well. Excellent. Less work for me.” She tried to produce a joyful smile, but that only made her feel more awkward.

Right when she was about to rush back to the kitchen and lock herself in there for the remainder of the evening, Clarke eyed her. “On the second thought, I could use some wine,” she said.

Lexa hesitated, half expecting the waiter to answer first. But Clarke was obviously looking at _her_ , so she nervously folded her hands in front of her in an attempt to take on a professional attitude. “Wine,” she repeated. “What kind of wine would you like?”

Now it was Clarke’s turn to feel nervous – earlier that day, she’d declared that she wasn’t really a wine fan and that wasn’t a lie. “Uh, is there something you can recommend?”

“Well, we always have a daily suggestion, one that fits well with the menu.”

“Oh, good, then give me a glass of that.” Clarke gave her a friendly smile that woke up the butterflies in Lexa’s stomach. _So at least she wasn’t angry about the kiss._

“Okay, so a glass of…” Her voice died away, realizing that she didn’t know which wine was on the menu. In fact she didn’t know _anything_ about the menu, except that it contained tomatoes. “The suggestion,” she finished a little timidly.

She didn’t wait for Clarke to confirm her order before she returned to the kitchen, almost colliding with the waiter in her hurry to find Anya. He stopped her and furrowed his brow. “Are you okay?” he asked. “I’ve never seen you this nervous before.”

“Yeah, I’m-” She inhaled sharply. Nyko was a good friend of hers, but not exactly the type of person you told these kind of things to. So instead, she said: “That blonde girl ordered a glass of today’s wine suggestion, but I don’t know which one that is. Can you bring it to her?”

Nyko grinned and walked to the bar. “I can _prepare_ it,” he said slowly, while pouring some type of red wine into one of those immensely fragile glasses, “but I think she obviously wants you to _bring_ it to her.” He put the glass on a tray and shoved it in her direction.

“Oh, no.” Lexa firmly shook her head. “Knowing me, there’s a ninety-nine percent chance I’ll drop it.” She wasn’t lying – her trembling had never been this bad.

“Okay,” Nyko mumbled with a shrug while he took the tray himself. “If you’re sure.”

“No, alright, I’ll do it.” She took the tray from him before she could change her mind and firmly walked back towards the dining room, gaining confidence in what she was doing. If she just carried it with both hands, nothing could go wrong.

It wasn’t Lexa who dropped the tray, although she might have been able to avoid the crash if she hadn’t been staring intensely at the glass on her tray. Jasper backed off, his expression shocked when he saw the mess he’d made. Most of the wine was spilled over the floor, but part of it had landed on his jeans and there was shattered glass everywhere. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t see you coming.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t _run_ in here,” Lexa snapped. She could physically _feel_ the many eyes in the room that were focused on them, conversations fading out as all guests turned their attention to the scene. There was no chance that Clarke hadn’t noticed this.

“Sorry,” Jasper apologized again. “We’ll… pay for it.”

Nyko hurried over to them with a rag and a dustpan, which was fortunate because Lexa felt a lot like slapping that lanky teenager across the face. “You go back to the kitchen,” Nyko hissed to Lexa, sensing her state of annoyance. “I’ll take care of this.”

Lexa ignored him and disappeared through the side door leading to the pantry. With an angry move, she snatched off her apron and threw it to the floor. Anya would be wondering where she was, but she didn’t care about that right now. She was in desperate need of a moment alone. Her head was spinning and the signs of an upcoming migraine attack were getting more and more numerous.

Right when she thought this evening couldn’t possibly get any worse, she felt a hand on her arm. 

The chagrin with which she whirled around took Clarke by surprise and the blonde girl backed off a little, her expression disappointed. 

“Oh, it’s you,” Lexa uttered, her voice still rather unfriendly due to all the emotions that were rushing through her when she found herself staring into her favorite pair of eyes. “I mean, I was expecting someone else, not you, so actually I’m glad it’s you, because it’s not... someone else,” she stammered, her limited English vocabulary putting serious constraints on her attempts not to come across as a complete dork.

Clarke answered her clumsiness with a sweet smile, and for a second Lexa swore that she could even catch her glimpsing at her lips. Obviously Clarke had followed her here for a good reason, but the brief silence before she started to speak was unbearable for an already tensed and incredibly awkward person like Lexa, so she choked out some more incoherent sentences. “Look, I’m sorry for earlier, I didn’t mean to… it just happened, I… I’m very sorry, I shouldn’t have…”

“It’s okay,” Clarke interrupted her, still smiling. In a bold move, she placed her hands on Lexa’s hips and gently pushed her against the wall in a grip light enough for the French girl to escape. Escaping was the last thing on Lexa’s mind, though, as she found herself unable to breathe with the blonde being this close to her. She didn’t know what actual love was, or if it was possible to develop it in less than a few hours, but she was in love with the mole above this girl’s upper lip, she was in love with the dimple in her chin, she was in love with her eyelids fluttering closed and then open again to reveal those bright blue eyes – she was in love with _Clarke_.

“In fact, I came here to tell you how much I regret not answering you,” Clarke mumbled slowly, while searching Lexa’s eyes for some sign of an objection. When she didn’t seem to find any, she added: “So here goes.” 

It was a short kiss, light and chaste, more like a brushing of the lips, but oh so tempting for more. Their lips breaking apart felt like a part of Lexa being ripped away. She was holding an inner battle with herself on whether or not to kiss her again, but then what was the worst that could happen – after tonight she would never see this girl again anyway. So in spite of Clarke loosening the grip on her hips, Lexa lightly folded her fingers around the back of the blonde girl's head and firmly pressed their mouths together. Clarke leaned into the touch, her hips pressing against Lexa’s, her hands travelling to the brunette’s waist. They kissed slow and gentle, hearts beating in the same fast rhythm, hands making their way under sweaters, and for a moment the world just stopped turning and there was only Clarke. 

Neither of them pulled away this time. It was the sound of a door slamming open and a food trolley being pushed into the pantry that made them jerk away from each other. Clarke nervously tucked a few of her blonde curls behind her ears, her eyes glued to the floor. 

“What are you doing here?” the woman that was pushing the food trolley snapped to Clarke, in a hard-to-understand southern French dialect. “This is supposed to be a private section.” 

“She’s with me,” Lexa interfered, saving Clarke from the awkward conversation with her grouchy colleague Indra. “I brought her here because…” _Yeah, because of what._ “Because she needs band-aids,” she improvised. “Hers got ruined in the stormy weather.” 

Indra arched a brow. “And you expect to find band-aids between the food supplies?” 

“No,” Lexa said with a smile, as if her story made perfect sense. “We’re taking a shortcut.” 

“Right.” Indra shifted her gaze between the two girls and decided not to make a remark about their flushed cheeks. “Then I’ll go right back to the kitchen and tell Anya you’ll be there in two minutes with the pasta that she sent me here to get _because you went missing_.” 

“Perfect.” Lexa was grinning despite herself, and when she glanced at Clarke, she saw that the blonde was trying to hide her smile as well. Indra left with a loud banging of the door.

“Band-aids,” Clarke scoffed. “Is that the best you can come up with?”

“Excuse me, you came up with it first.” Lexa wrapped her arms around Clarke’s waist and teasingly pushed her against a rack of food. The British girl smirked and put her hands on Lexa’s shoulders, enjoying this sneakiness.

“Yeah, but I _actually_ needed band-aids. And after that, I also used a garden and a glass of wine as excuses to see you. And I don’t even like wine.”

“I took your order but I never work as a waitress,” Lexa countered, emphasizing her argument with a kiss on Clarke’s cheek.

“No offense, but that was pretty obvious.”

Lexa rolled her eyes, but didn’t argue back when Clarke kissed her, more urgently this time. The brunette gladly granted her access and tightened their embrace, causing Clarke to make a pleased humming noise that gave Lexa butterflies. The blonde broke the kiss immediately after, however, and wriggled herself out of Lexa’s grip. “Two minutes, your colleague said,” Clarke noted while she searched the rack for pasta. When she found it, she grinned smugly and threw a few boxes onto the trolley.

“Since when do you speak French?” Lexa asked, flabbergasted.

“I don’t, but _deux minutes_ and _pâtes_ happen to be part of my depressingly limited vocabulary.”

Lexa bit her lip, not wanting to leave it at this. She didn’t know what all this was to Clarke, but she herself was far from done with her. “I don’t think Anya minds if I-”

Clarke silenced her with a chaste kiss on her lips. “Perhaps you forgot, but I’m kind of having dinner in a restaurant at the moment.”

“And your food is far from ready,” Lexa objected, pointing at the pasta on the trolley.

Clarke chuckled. “You’re so cute.” She took Lexa’s hand in hers and bit her lip, suddenly looking adorably shy. The fingers of her free hand trailed the buttons of Lexa’s working blouse as she spoke. “I was kind of thinking that… maybe… I could come find you _after_ dinner… I sort of figured out that there’s one of these highly restricted _sections_ _privates_ on the first floor and…”

“Yes,” Lexa said immediately. “My shift ends at ten.” 

The smile on Clarke’s face widened and she gave her another kiss, this one ending rather teasingly on the corner of Lexa’s mouth. “See you then,” she whispered into her ear, and then she straightened her clothes and left just as fast as she’d come in.

Lexa used the food trolley to remain in balance, the world seemingly swirling around her. _God, this girl_.

It was only seconds later that Anya burst in, fuming and in desperate need of pasta. When she saw Lexa, though, her anger made place for a cheeky grin and she shook her head in disbelief. “So nobody ever likes you, huh.”

Lexa couldn’t stop grinning and regained her balance just enough to send the trolley off to Anya with an overly happy push.

“Apparently the English do.”

* * *

At ten in the evening, Clarke left Octavia behind in their room “to get some fresh air and maybe check on the boys”. Every excuse was good to get out of there. All evening long, she’d been counting the minutes to the end of Lexa’s shift. For some time she’d considered telling Octavia about what happened, but then she would for sure tell Finn and he would tell Jasper and Monty and they would all start asking questions and acting pretty obvious about it and she could really miss that. Besides, this secret element made it all a lot more exciting.

Clarke descended to the first floor on her socks, sneaking past the first few guest rooms and then ignoring the _privat_ sign on the door that led her straight to the area where the hotel owners lived. Despite Lexa agreeing with this plan, Clarke still felt nervous. What would happen if that grumpy uncle would catch her here? She could always say that she got lost, but that wouldn’t be a very convincing argument.

She stopped in the middle of the corridor, not quite knowing what to do next. All doors looked similar and she had no clue which one was Lexa’s. So she just waited, feeling a little vulnerable standing there on her own. Or, in fact, _very_ vulnerable. She wished she would have brought a watch to count the time that passed, while all she could hear was her own heartbeat racing against her ribs. Even swallowing suddenly sounded so loud that it startled her.

Right when she thought she wouldn’t turn up anymore, Clarke felt a movement directly behind her. Two arms snaked around her waist, two lips pressed a light kiss on her neck, two blue eyes fluttered shut when Clarke allowed herself to lean into the warmth of the body behind her.

“I was getting afraid you wouldn’t be here,” Clarke whispered.

As Lexa didn’t answer, Clarke turned around in her arms to look at her. The hotel employee had exchanged her working outfit for loose hair and a comfortable jumper, very soft and in a deep green color that perfectly matched her eyes. In the dim hallway lights, with shadows cast over her face, there was something about her that made Clarke struggle to catch her breath. Lexa was a _woman_ , a pretty face you would expect to see on billboards and on magazine covers, admirable but far out of reach, and not here in an old hotel with her arms wrapped around an unimportant and ordinary college girl like Clarke.

None of this mattered when Lexa kissed her. Clarke’s eyes closing made the picture of this new version of Lexa disappear, but more than ever she was aware of her green eyes and her tight jawline and her brown hair and her soft lips and just _her_. When she leaned further into the embrace, she was welcomed with open, caring arms. If it hadn’t been for those arms holding her in balance, Clarke would probably have collapsed to the floor right there, legs unstable and head losing all track of orientation.

Somewhere far away Clarke registered her back hitting a wall, and seconds later the floor under her feet disappeared as Lexa lifted her onto her hips, and Clarke faintly wondered if that wasn’t a hard thing to do for a fragile girl like her, but that didn’t matter as she did be there with Lexa all over her and she was kissing her, _oh she was so kissing her_.

Lexa’s hands roamed over her and caused Clarke to pull away, repressing a moan she didn’t feel comfortable letting out in the middle of this corridor. But Lexa’s lips moved to her neck instead, leaving a trail of soft kisses all over her sensitive and unexplored skin. Clarke automatically tilted her head back to give her more access, the touch of this girl feeling so right that she couldn’t possibly get enough of it. And then they weren’t kissing anymore but Lexa was looking at her from up close, noses brushing as her wide eyes asked Clarke an unmistakable question.

Words were of no importance when Clarke answered her with another kiss, her hands tangled up in Lexa’s hair, her legs wrapped tightly around her waist, and every single part of her fully agreeing with this moment, more than she’d ever been certain about something.

* * *

“Clarke, what’s wrong?”

One minute Lexa was lying in a close embrace with the British girl, legs tangled under the sheets, slumbering into a peaceful sleep with blonde hair pressed against her hot cheek. The next minute, Clarke was up and out of the bed and so _gone_ that it hurt. Still half asleep, Lexa pushed herself up on one arm to check her bedside clock – it really was only half past eleven in the evening and not nearly time to get up yet. She observed the blonde girl hurrying to get dressed with mild confusion.

“Look, if there’s anything I need to apologize for-” she started, but Clarke cut her off.

“There’s absolutely nothing you need to apologize for,” she reassured. “It was amazing. But I really can’t stay here, my friends will be wondering where I am…” She trailed off when she saw the saddened look on Lexa’s face.

The brunette bit her lip and nodded. “Okay,” she said in barely more than a whisper. To make her words sound more convincing, she threw in a smile and added: “Of course.”

Clarke stood there a little dazed, still not wearing anything but her underwear. Somehow she had assumed that Lexa did this often – _how else could she be this good_ – so it wouldn’t mean much to her, but the brunette’s letdown attitude told her otherwise.

_What if tonight_ did _mean something to her? What if she felt the same things that Clarke felt? What if Lexa was the person she had been looking for all along? What if she would just put her worries aside and go for it, for once without looking back at all the shit that she had been through?_

There were a lot of things Clarke could say when she stood there next to the bed of her new favorite person with the dazzling green eyes, in a country where she didn’t know anyone nor spoke the language. She could try to get to know more about her; what her days looked like, which dreams she had, where she saw herself in the future. She could tell her about her own troubled past, and explain how much it meant to her that Lexa had taken her thoughts off that for more than just a carefree moment. She could tell her that tonight hadn’t just been amazing; that it had been perfect, and that even in the high of the moment, she deeply dreaded the prospect of leaving in the morning. 

She didn’t say all those things. Instead, she cupped Lexa’s cheek and asked: “Will you be there during breakfast?”

“Normally it’s not my shift, but I’ll be there if you want me to.” The hotel employee leaned into Clarke’s touch, trying to keep her close to her for as long as she could.

It was wishful thinking, for sure, to hope that there would be any way to turn this into something less painful than it was. Some things just weren’t fair.

“Good.”

Octavia was already asleep when Clarke came in a good twenty minutes later – what was meant to be a quick goodbye kiss had escalated into more making out – and the blonde girl sighed when she joined her best friend in the bed. They’d been sleeping in the same bed for months, but this was the first time that it felt weird. When Clarke opened her travelling diary to write down the events of the day, she ended up pointlessly chewing on her pen and staring at the ceiling.

There were a lot of things in her life that she regretted, most of which she couldn’t help and wasn’t at all to blame for. But lying there in bed next to Octavia – who indeed snored awfully, she had to agree – she feared that maybe not staying with Lexa tonight would be the biggest regret of it all.

* * *

Lexa woke up twenty minutes late for the start of breakfast, which meant that she had twenty minutes less to spend with Clarke before they would have to say goodbye. Cursing loudly, she snatched the first clothes she could find out of her wardrobe and hastily ran her fingers through her hair – there was no time to comb it properly.

She was already down the first set of stairs before she remembered the letter that she’d written last night. After a moment of deliberation, she rushed back to her room. The letter was nothing more than one side of a sheet, considering she knew almost nothing about Clarke and so there wasn’t a lot to write about, but she didn’t just want to accept the fact that she would never get to see her again.

_Clarke,_

_I’m writing you this because I can’t stop thinking about you._

_I’ve known since the very first smile you gave me that this would be a temporary thing, that I shouldn’t put my hopes in you because you would inevitably leave in the morning. That’s how it goes when you work in a hotel on a pilgrimage route: people come and go, whether or not you get along with them._

_You’re different. I knew that when you walked in, and I know that now that I’ve been trying to fall asleep for a good hour. You’re different, because I can’t just wake up tomorrow and forget about what I had when you were still here. You know, ever since my uncle adopted me and practically forced me to work in his stupid hotel, I’ve been longing for the day that someone like you would cross my path and change the way I look at life._

_I’m not very special, Clarke, and nor am I gifted with a caring family or the means to build up my life the way I want it. But never have I lost hope that things will get better, that at some point I’ll find a way to jump off this train and decide_ _for myself_ _where I’m headed_ _._

_If I could, I would do that now and follow you to Santiago. I would love to get to know you better, to listen to your stories, to find out what brings you here on a pilgrimage trip. If I could, I would drop everything and never look back._

_But instead, I’ll do what I actually can do and give you my number. I might be wrong about this, but I feel like there’s a lot more to our story than just tonight. Maybe I’ll never hear from you again and that would be fine, because then at least I won’t spend the rest of my life wondering what could have happened if I did have the guts to tell you how I feel. Just know that you can call me any time you want, in case I changed your life like you changed mine._

_Love,_

_Lexa_

After reading it again, Lexa hesitated. Her letter had seemed very right last night, but now it sounded heavy and desperate. She ripped off the bottom corner where she’d scribbled her number and left the rest of the letter on her bedside table, then stormed down the stairs for the second time that morning.

Lexa had hoped to get through the kitchen unnoticed, but Indra blocked her way out.

“What are you doing here?” her colleague asked. “I thought it wasn’t your shift this morning.”

“No, I – uh.” Band-aids were no excuse here, and she couldn’t say that she had changed shifts either because she wasn’t wearing her working uniform. Moreover, there was no time for this kind of explanations, all she wanted now was to be with Clarke. Lexa tried to glance into the dining room over Indra’s shoulder, a move that didn’t go unnoticed either.

“Wait – you’re coming for that girl,” Indra concluded. “That British one, with the blonde hair. Am I right?”

“Clarke,” Lexa mumbled, a little irritated. “Yes. So can you please let me pass?”

“Lexa…” Indra sighed and scratched her neck. “I’m very sorry for you, but her group left early. There’s another storm coming this afternoon and they wanted to reach the next town before it starts raining.”

“What?” She now shoved Indra aside and brutally burst into the dining room, her heart racing wildly.

The table by the window was empty.

“No,” she said to Indra, who had followed her. “She wouldn’t do that. She said that she wanted to see me, she…”

“Lexa.” Indra gave her a light squeeze in her shoulder. “I _saw_ them leave.”

“All five of them?” Her voice sounded begging. This couldn’t be true. She knew Clarke, at least a little. She wouldn’t do this. _Would she do this?_

“Why, do you think she’s hiding behind the curtain?”

Indra’s sense of humor wasn’t exactly what Lexa was waiting for at that moment. She shook the older woman’s hand off of her and disappeared back into the kitchen, tears filling her eyes as the realization started to hit her. Indra came after her, trying to make up for her unsuited behavior.

“They can’t be far,” she said. “If you really like her that much, then go after them and tell her.”

Lexa stopped dead in her tracks, causing Indra to almost bump into her. The woman groaned and massaged her sore back – these days she kept on complaining about her age, and how she wasn’t supposed to run around this much anymore but she was left no choice because she was surrounded by the useless, lazy youth of today.

“Oh my god, yes, I should go after her,” Lexa gasped. “I’m _going_ after her.” She ran out of the kitchen, leaving Indra behind with an unsettled frown on her face.

“Thank you, Indra,” Indra said to herself. “You’re brilliant, you know that?”

* * *

Lexa loudly burst into her room, not paying attention to anything except the closet where she kept her shoes. She didn’t take the time to untie the laces but plopped down on her bed and wriggled her feet into them just like that.

It was only when she started to search for her keys that she noticed something was wrong. The letter wasn’t on her bedside table anymore. Instead, it lay neatly folded on her pillow.

She folded it open and her heart skipped a beat when she noticed a series of digits that hadn’t been there before, written in the corner opposite the piece that she'd ripped out.

_How was this possible?_

“You know, if you want me to call you, you should actually _give me_ your number,” a voice behind her said, making her jump. Lexa whirled around with the letter in her hands, startling as she saw Clarke standing next to the door with her arms crossed and a smirk on her face. Smirking even harder, Clarke pointed at the letter in her hands. “I thought I’d give you mine to show you how it works.”

Just like the first time they met, Lexa’s jaw dropped. This time, however, she didn’t feel the slightest bit embarrassed. She was too taken aback to let this sink in properly, and also dead afraid that she was just dreaming this and Clarke would disappear if she would only blink her eyes.

Clarke didn’t disappear. She was there, sharp and vivid, in her own room, still smirking as if she’d been planning this all night.

_She_ had _probably been planning this all night._

“You didn’t leave,” Lexa uttered breathlessly.

Clarke walked closer, but stopped right in front of her, leaving this decision to Lexa. “No,” she said softly. “Because, you know, _I’m different_.”

Without further delay, Lexa took Clarke’s face in her hands and kissed her. The blonde first smiled against her lips, but quickly turned to serious when she felt the love in Lexa’s kiss. She held her tight and kissed her back, returning the unspoken words Lexa was trying to say to her. Somehow they both ended up on the bed, Clarke falling on top of Lexa and never breaking the kiss until they were both in desperate need of air.

“Why did you burst in as if something was chasing you?” Clarke whispered, her breath warm against Lexa’s cheek.

“Indra told me you’d left. I wanted to go after you.”

“You would have really done that for me?” Clarke bit her lip, finding it hard to believe that anyone could possibly feel this way about her.

“Well, you stayed here for me,” Lexa mumbled. Their lips brushed again, but before Clarke could lean in, Lexa pulled away.

“What about your pilgrimage?” she asked, a tone of concern in her voice.

Clarke traced Lexa’s jaw with her finger, a smile curling around her lips. “I don’t need to finish it. When my friends brought up the idea, they told me the destination didn’t matter, for as long as I would take some time to think about…” She hesitated as she lay there staring into the wonderful pair of green eyes underneath her. Lexa was one of the few people who didn’t yet give her the Look Of Pity. Judging by her letter, she herself had been through a lot and would be the first to understand Clarke’s misery, but still Clarke wanted to keep it like this for a while. Just light, loving, just _them_ , without any dark secrets of their past to haunt them.

“I’ll tell you about that later,” Clarke concluded with a smile. “Let’s say that you’re my destination.”

Their next kiss was a very happy one, sweet and long-lasting, filling their hearts with a sort of pleasure they hadn’t thought they would ever feel again.

* * *

_Clarke's travelling diary - Day one hundred and two_

_Destination ~~Unknown~~_

_Lexa_


End file.
